Jammed Window
by Woodrokiro
Summary: Rukia planned many things for the night before her wedding; she did NOT plan for Ichigo to barge into her quarters. Written for deathberryprompts on Tumblr's "time."


Rukia planned many things for the night before her wedding: taking care of some last minute paperwork for her captain, catching up on her reading, drawing a nice hot bath. Some "her" time, if you will.

She did not– _absolutely_ not–plan on Ichigo barging into her quarters at 10:36 in the evening.

She stares. "Ichigo, what–"

"Yo. We gotta go."

He heads straight to the window and starts to fiddle with the latch. Suddenly remembering the the cup of tea halfway to her lips (frozen in middair due to the interruption), she quickly sets it down and gets up, bewildered. "Is everything okay? Is there something going on in Karakura–"

"What, like a hollow? Hell no, you know I could've taken care of that." He stops fiddling to give her a _look_. "I'm getting you out of here."

She's at a loss for words. " _Excuse_ me?!"

"You know: eloping, running away, cold feet–well, I guess that would just involve you and not an outside party, huh? Anyway, I'm helping you cancel your wedding."

"…Ichigo." After a moment of complete and utter bafflement, she lets out a sigh. "We've been over this before–"

"Jesus, what the hell's wrong with this window? Byakuya locking you in or something?"

"The window gets jammed. These are the division quarters, I don't even live with Nii sama anymore–" She shakes her head, remembering priorities. "As I was _saying_ , we've talked about this."

"Yeah? Remind me again."

She grits her teeth, stifling the urge to smack him because while he is purposefully playing stupid this is… A delicate issue with both of them and she really needs to be the mature one here considering the other is trying to escape through a broken window when there's a perfectly good _door_ he just went through. "We live in two separate worlds–"

"So we'll live in the same one. The living one, for now. Might just be easier to lay low from Soul Society for awhile."

"Okay, fine, but what of our aging differences? You'll grow old and die and I'll practically be the same age and you'll be the dirty old man married to a twenty year old!"

He looks at her like _she's_ the crazy one. "We'll ask Urahara for a favor and a few gigais at different ages. Might be creepy, having the extra ones sit in a box in our attic but… And when I die, you can just rejoin me at Soul Society. Things will boil over by then."

"What if–what if we have _children_? We'll just leave them in the living world on their own?!"

"Woah now, Rukia, we aren't even living together yet. _Children_? You are moving just a tad too fast for me."

"Ichigo, I'm serious!" She huffs and hates the way Ichigo's eyes twinkle before he turns back to screwing up her window even more. "This is no small thing! And… And what about Renji?"

"Renji will be fine. He's our friend and he loves you and he wants you to be happy."

"Then why can't you feel the same way?"

He stops his handiwork and turns slowly to her. Rukia keeps her eyes trained on a point to his left as he walks her way, afraid to look him in the eye.

He's a hand-width away from her when he gently tucks his forefinger and thumb under her chin, forcing her to look at him.

"Because you're not happy," he answers quietly.

She blinks, trying her best to keep the sudden (stupid) tears at bay. "How do you _know_?"

There is a silence as he searches her face, before he frees his hand.

"I just do." He shrugs, childishly, like he knows the sky is blue or that fire is hot or that he is completely head over heels in love with Rukia Kuchiki and that she feels exactly the same and that he has never _not_ known all of her.

He strides back to the window as he leaves her there completely amazed as always.

She waits a moment before she joins him.

"As usual, your timing is absolutely horrid," she states dryly, pulling open the window with an experienced tug.

He grins. "Yeah, well–being on time never was my style."

He holds out his hand and she takes it.


End file.
